Why is the hot water turned off in summer in Russia?

One of the other teachers in our group sent along this link to an interesting article in today's NY Times about hot water in Russia; unfortunately, many of the host families went through this while we were in both Vladimir and Murom. I was fortunate-- both Katya and The Colonel had a hot water heater in their bathrooms...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/world/europe/20cnd-moscow.html

Trip pictures are online...

http://dbashmak.myphotoalbum.com

What a trip!

Is it just me, or was that a fast 5 weeks? I arrived back in Texas last night after a long day of travelling that began for all of us at 7:30am when we left our hotel for the Moscow airport by bus. After a couple of hours in traffic, we arrived at Sheremetevo-2 and stood in line for about another 45 minutes to get through security and ticketing, then had a little time on our hands before our 12:15pm flight to New York. The flight left a few minutes late, but we arrived at JFK a little early, at approximately 2pm-- no matter how you slice it, Moscow to the U.S. is a 10-hour flight.

At JFK, the customs entry point is probably the worst, in terms of "customer friendliness," I have experienced! (Washington Dulles is the best, in my opinion, and Dallas is okay.) The customs guy who was pointing folks into the citizen or non-citizen lines was stereotypically New York rude (and even told one visitor, not a U.S. citizen: "Ma'am, if you raise your voice one more time, you're gonna be here for 3 hours."-- nice, huh?) Besides the general feel of confusion (it was confusing to ME and I live here-- I helped one non-English-speaking Russian lady going to Seattle who couldn't figure out the bag-checking process for continued flights; I agreed that it was way too complicated of a process, a "cluster %$#@" as one of the Americans in our group remarked while we were in a line wondering what to do with our checked luggage, and added that it was worse than the Moscow airport to which she agreed). The part of this seemingly renaturalization ritual I REALLY don't understand is the full security check (shoes off, scans, etc.) before moving on to the next flight; I suppose it's because we can't be too sure about other countries' security measures...but, still, it was a drag after such a long flight. I feel sorry for foreigners whose first impression of America is JFK airport.

While we were in the luggage line trying to figure out what the procedure was, I noticed a 4:20pm flight to DFW a few gates away from our continued flight to Chicago O'Hare. Once we got out of the bowels of the reentry area, I hurried to the gate and asked if I could swap my Chicago ticket for a seat to Dallas. I got an even exchange, but had only minutes before boarding, so my suitcase went on to O'Hare and I didn't really get a chance to say goodbye to everyone... My wife met me at the airport at around 7:30pm and then after a quick stop by my mom's house for hello and a bite (I was tired as a dog, but my daughters, sister, dad, and aunt were there), I was home in bed by about 10:30pm. And, oddly enough, I slept pretty well-- no identifiable signs of jet lag just yet-- after the 20+ hour-long travel day that was yesterday.

So, if you're an "everyone" from the group, sorry to have disappeared so quickly! It was a great trip and you were a great bunch to travel with! I really, really enjoyed my time in Russia! And to Ron and Aleksei & Galya: Thank you SO much for everything!! I hope I haven't seen the last of you... And Katya (my hostess in Vladimir), if you're reading this: Вам огромное спасибо за то, что Вы открыли мне свою кавартиру (и жизнь) на две недели! Я очень хорошо провёл время... Передайте пожалуйста "Прощай" от меня Царю Стефану и его двоюродному брату Майку! And if you have been following my journey, I hope I was able to convey a sense of what we experienced as American teachers in Russia-- thanks for tagging along!

As soon as I can get all of my pictures uploaded to a webpage, I will post the link here.

So much Russia in so little time...

Удачи всем из Техаса!

E.B.

Прощай, Россия!

At the Moscow airport to go home, 10:30am Mon.

An American Lutheran in Russia

Aleksei and I after his service, 6pm Sun. It sure was nice to be able to be part of Aleksei's congregation again, even for only the length of a worship service. As a Lutheran pastor in Russia, he has his work cut out for him. Among those present this evening were a Norwegian family, husband and wife and two cute-as-can-be young daughters, who had been living here in Moscow a year and are going back to Norway on Wednesday. They were a pleasure to chat with, as was a young woman who will be marrying a Norwegian guy (who, she told me, is on a ship somewhere in the North Sea)-- Aleksei will be performing the ceremony next month. I met another young couple with a baby, whom Aleksei had baptized a few weeks ago; they were very nice, too. In the middle of the service, a twentysomething Russian woman wandered in and sat down...she turned out to be a Baptist from somewhere other than Moscow, but I could see she was struggling with the liturgy a bit, so I introduced myself to her and tried to help her along... Lutheran services are really not all that complicated, but the order of service takes a time or two to get down (but she persevered).

Anyway, it was great to visit Aleksei's congregation, which, incidentally, is the sister congregation of my Lutheran church family back in Texas. I wish I had had more time to visit with them!

Last day in Moscow...

Tomorrow we're up early to get a bus to the airport for our 12:15 flight to JFK in New York... I think everyone's about ready; it's not too difficult to read some of the shifts in the group dynamics. ;)

Today we visited, as you can tell from the previous posts, Red Square to see Lenin's mausoleum and St. Basil's Cathedral. I split from the group to return to the hotel to do some emailing/blogging before church at 5pm. Everyone else went on to the Arbat, a big shopping area where there's a Hard Rock Cafe the Americans just love to go into. I've been there a few times already, so...

...here I am. Contemplating lunch, actually, as it's currently about 1:30pm.

It's been a great trip, so far, but I really have to say that I enjoyed the more "real life" adventures of Vladimir and Murom. I like St. Pete and Moscow, but I'd rather live here for awhile among the natives than wander through the tourist spots... But all the places we've been in both cities are, I suppose, part of the See Russia experience, so I can't really complain. I've seen things I hadn't seen before, so for me it's been a VERY worthwhile experience!! (And our group is a good one-- everyone gets along with one another, which doesn't always happen with prolonged travel programs like this.)

Unless something more blog-worthy happens, I'll send up a last photo from the airport as we're saying Прощай! (Farewell!) to Moscow...

So, in advance, thanks for tuning in and keeping an eye on me/us here in Russia. It sure has been an odyssey!

Пока!

E.B.

St. Basil's Cathedral

Yours Truly in front of St. Basil's Cathedral on Red Square (the first time I've ever seen it without scaffolding!), 11:30am Sun. I got to see the inside for the first time; it's an interesting place, very different from other more typical Orthodox cathedrals.

Our sherpa...

Here's our Russian guide Nadya weighed down with my backpack full of cameras during our wait in the long line for Lenin's tomb, 10:30 Sun. (Got to tell you that the 90 minutes in line to spend 1 minute with Lenin was kind of anticlimactic... But now we can all say we've seen the ol' boy-- or his wax likeness...)

I caught up with Aleksei...

Here I am with my good friend Aleksei at a restaurant for dinner, 8pm Sat. (I'll be seeing him again on Sunday evening for church-- Aleksei is a Lutheran pastor here in Moscow-- while everyone else is going to the circus.)

Kremlin 4

Start of Kremlin Guard ceremony, noon Sat.

Kremlin 3

I am in the crowd waiting for a Kremlin Guard ceremony to start at noon. I had just asked the stoic young man in uniform if I could take his picture... Nyet! (Don't know why my eyes are closed!)

Kremlin 2

In the Kremlin, the president's building in background (with white columns), 11:15am Sat.

Kremlin

Guide briefing group at Kremlin entrance, 11am Sat.

Two interesting articles on changing Russia...

Hello, again! A quick post to pass along two interesting articles I found reflecting the changing Russia in this week's English-language The Moscow News newspaper:

Bitten by Consumerism Bug

Hilton Comes to Moscow

Off to Red Square now, more later!

Saturday a.m. in Moscow

Yesterday was a blur. After arriving in Moscow on the night train, we were brought straight to the Vega Hotel, where we were able to get rooms pretty quickly at about 9am. Mine is on the 26th floor, so getting an elevator that doesn't stop on just about every floor is tricky (and everytime the doors open and people who are waiting see that an elevator is full, someone presses the button again and the doors don't close-- it's a marvel of Russian engineering). The weather here is mild, thankfully, so with an open window the rooms are not too bad. And the water in the shower is hot and pressurized like a fire hose...

One of my mantras here (that the others in the group have learned, it seems) is: There's one way and there's...(the Russian way). It's very easy to become impatient and even perplexed by the way Russians operate. I think the others in the group have come to appreciate that language isn't necessairly what separates us as a people; there is a cultural barrier that grays out occasionally (when things go smoothly in an almost Western sense), but is always there lurking under the surface. For instance...

Yesterday after the folk show in St. Pete, we had to get to the train station on time, so our guide arranged for us to have Subway (there is one on Nevsky Prospekt in the center of town) sandwiches, which she called and ordered ahead. Nothing is as it appears here, especially if it something familiar like an American restaurant. (A McDonald's here is a McDonald's, yes, but the customer service is WAY different-- Russian-- and the menu items are basically the same, but...well, you have to experience it to understand, I guess.) So, we rushed out of the theater to go to Subway. When we got out of the bus in front of Subway, so did our sandwiches. She had ordered them, gone to pick them up, then we went to there to eat (a good move, actually, because Subway sells beer and I was ready for a sedative by this point)-- there's one way, and there's... I wish I had captured the looks on the others' faces when they discover what kind of sandwiches our guide ordered. Apparently Russians think that Americans like ketchup on everything. How about something looking sort of like a an American sub sandwich slathered with ketchup?

Russia-- and Russians-- are full of contradictions, some amusing at first, some tiresome, such as ATMs that give out only large denomination bills that few places will accept because they can't (or so they say) make change. Last night at lunch, our guide gave me a 5,000-ruble note to pay for our lunches and dinners. The waitress begrudgingly gave me 3 1,000-ruble notes back in change that, again, had to be changed to give change to the others (????). This seemed like a laborious process for such a big, touristy hotel. I finally ended up at the money-changing lady's window-- she was on the phone and barked that I could only change one. So I gave the other two bills to two others who went back to her window to change them... Why? (Well, there's one way and there's...)

So, life goes on here in The Motherland. Everyone's well, and more than a few are ready to come home... We're off to Red Square today, so hopefully, I should be able to get up a picture or two. And I may even get a chance to see my friend Aleksei tonight.

That's it for now. Stay tuned...

Vega (hotel, not star-- or 70s era Chevy)

Well, we made it to Moscow intact. We're staying at the Vega Hotel adjacent to to the uber-touristy shopping bazaar Izmailovsky Park. I stayed in the same hotel complex here last June with my students... I can't believe it's been over a year.

Anyway, only a few more days left...

I'll check back in when I have more time.

Arrival in Moscow

We made it to the Moscow train station-- I got 4 hours of sleep, more than I expected. The compartments were SO hot! 7am Fri.

Which one doesn't belong?

On the train...waiting to depart at 11pm. 10:45pm Thur.

Sleeper Train Redux :(

At the station for the sleeper train, 10pm Thur.

Folk Music Show

Russian traditional folk music show... Great dancing! 8pm, Thur.